Why only 2 geniekin in rage of elements?

[agoak]

I'm starting pathfinder with 2e remastered, and it feels like I am being forced to buy legacy products in order to get heritages (or are they ancestries, that wasn't clear either) for the other 4 geniekin that I feel should have been included in rage of the elements.

[NoxiousMiasma]

All the pre-Remaster rules are available for free at the Archives of Nethys (2e.aonprd.com). The Remaster rules aren't a huge change, so I'd be suprised if they actually needed any adjustments, and AoN incorporates the errata anyway.

The Greek Classical Elements geniekin didn't get included because Rage of Elements was literally the first Remaster book and things were both very weird and moving very fast at the time. Presumably they'll get updated so they can be included in the new license at some point, but I'm not sure when.

[Finoan]

Agreed. Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, Undine, and Suli already existed in Ancestry Guide when Rage of Elements was created. There isn't much need to reprint them there.

And with Ancestry Guide being a Lost Omens book (mostly lore rather than game rules) there isn't much need to Remaster the entire book. The APs and Lost Omens books are 'Legacy' more because of publication date rather than because of any incompatibility or updating that they need.

Probably the biggest updating that they need would be with the Elemental Lore feat. It should give the Additional Lore feat for the associated elemental plane instead of just giving Trained proficiency - to match things like Elven Lore does for their ancestry lore skill. But even Ardande and Talos are needing that update from the look of things in AoN.

[agoak]

Unfortunately if my players are looking through the book or printed pdf "it's available on a website under the old system" isn't much use as a guideline, and "buy the legacy book, it's in there" is exactly the problem I have.
I do appreciate the explanation about it being the first remastered book though I am admittedly confused how there were licensing issues in transferring one Paizio book's contents into another Paizio book. Was the brand sold between versions or something?

[Finoan]

No, the licensing strangeness is because you can't retroactively reprint book pages. So the page announcing the game license that Ancestry Guide has, still has the OGL printed on it. Paizo could absolutely reprint Ancestry Guide (under the same name or a different name) and change the licensing page to the ORC license (as long as they removed any OGL-licensed content from it - all of the Paizo original content would be fine).

But just changing the license wouldn't make it a 'Remaster' book. Just like being published with the OGL license doesn't make something a 'Legacy' book (Rage of Elements is published with the OGL license).

Reprinting Ancestry Guide with the ORC license, and having that be the only change, would not update the Elemental Lore feat to use Additional Lore, for example. There would still be some work needed to fully say that the book's game rule content is 'Remaster'.

But that additional work may not be worth the cost of republishing.

So, the short answer that I am trying to give is that the Lost Omens line of books - even the Legacy ones - are Remaster enough to be worth buying even today. You wouldn't want to buy the "Core Rulebook" or the "Gamemastery Guide". Buy "Player Core", "Player Core 2", and "GM Core" instead. But that is because those are rule books, not lore books.

[exequiel759]

There's always Archives of Nethys as well.

[Nightwhisper]

agoak wrote:

I do appreciate the explanation about it being the first remastered book though I am admittedly confused how there were licensing issues in transferring one Paizio book's contents into another Paizio book. Was the brand sold between versions or something?

The five other (air, earth, fire, water, and mixed) geniekin not being in Rage of Elements isn't a licensing issue itself. It's more that Rage of Elements wasn't originally developed as a remaster product, it was converted to a remaster product partway through development. So when it was being scoped and development began, it was going to be published as part of the exact same version of the system where the previous five geniekin existed. So reprinting those 20 pages would've been the option that draws bad reactions. And trying to add 20 pages to the book by the time they knew there was going to be a remaster would've been practically impossible.

[Ravingdork]

agoak wrote:

I'm starting pathfinder with 2e remastered, and it feels like I am being forced to buy legacy products in order to get heritages (or are they ancestries, that wasn't clear either) for the other 4 geniekin that I feel should have been included in rage of the elements.

Just because you feel it should be so doesn't mean it is or should be that way.

You're not being forced to buy anything at all. Thats just not the way Paizo operates. All of the game's rules, all of it, is provided online by Paizo, for free, including your versatile heritages.

And unless your players don't use modern phones and devices, looking them up shouldn't really be much of an issue for them either.

To make it even easier for you though, here is a complete list of all the versatile heritages, including the elemental heritages below:
- Ardande (plant/wood)
- Ifrit (fire)
- Oread (earth)
- Suli (elements)
- Sylph (air)
- Talos (metal)
- Undine (water)

As has been said, you may need to update their Elemental Lore feat to include Additional Lore, but that's it. Everything else matches what already exists in Remaster.

Just have fun! Don't let IRL labels (especially those that exist soley for legal reasons) get in the way of you and your friends enjoying a game of imagination.

[Ajaxius]

I imagine part of the issue is just Paizo not expecting the remaster to be as much of a smash hit as it was.

[BotBrain]

I think the Karen comment is a little unnecessary to someone expressing frustration over what is a confusing situation if you weren't there for it.

OP, others have touched on it but the remaster is as much a balance patch as it was Paizo moving their new publications off the OGL. The problem here is that rage of elements was in the pipeline as the OGL crisis hit, so it got a wording change but there wouldn't have been space to publish any remastered rules. You might also note that elementalist didn't get a reprint alongside the new feats, even though it's also got the same awkward legacy/remaster split that genekin does.

The legacy rules also aren't an "old system", especially outside of classes which were the major changes. The other genekin are all fully compatible out the box, especially as Archives of Nethys does an excellent job of incorporating any errata.

It's best to understand "legacy" as not meaning "This doesn't work anymore" but instead "This may contain references to rules text that has been updated". Fortunately, archives will also link you to the updated version of the referenced rule by default, so your work is minimal. This is why everyone here is so insistant on sending you there instead of the books, because not only is it free and officially sanctioned, but it's really well made.

[Kelseus]

Ajaxius wrote:

I imagine part of the issue is just Paizo not expecting the remaster to be as much of a smash hit as it was.

Paizo was not doing Remaster because they wanted more money. They did remaster because the alternative was spending every dime they had and then some fighting with a multi-billion dollar company over the copyright of the term "magic missiles" and "owlbear."

Ask any of the Paizo employees (or go back and look at their former posts). Paizo would have 100% been happy to stick with OGL. Hasbro forced their hand.

[Perpdepog]

Just as a reminder, particularly if anyone is planning on using geniekin as foes any time soon, ifrit were renamed to naari in the Remaster; ifrit are now what the genies who give rise to naari are called rather than their prior name of efreeti.

[moosher12]

The actual reason is that Rage of Elements is not actually a Remastered book. Wood and Metal geniekin are OGL, not ORC, therefore they are still Legacy ancestries. There are NO remastered geniekin at all. It's an OGL book written with early Remastered writing style in mind, but it is not actually a Remastered book. It only needed two geniekin because the other 5 already existed in OGL. But yeah, none of the Rage of Elements content is ORC, therefore none of the Rage of Elements content is actually Remastered content, until the book either gets reprinted under ORC, or until a newer book publishes content scraped from it. (For example, if I wrote an ORC book, I cannot write material for the Kineticist, because the Kineticist is not a remastered class. I'd instead need to write Kineticist material in an OGL book. Though, because Paizo is 1st party, they can legally write supplemental material for their own OGL books in their own ORC books without needing to port the OGL content to ORC, which is why Impossible Magic includes Kineticist options while Kineticist is still OGL).

But on the bright side, this means that eventually, geniekin will be remastered, and because wood and metal geniekin are legacy, that means there's a good chance all 7 subtypes can be included in the same book when it comes time. It just won't be rage of elements. A direct remaster of an existing book keeps pagination, so there is no way to add the remaining 5 geniekin to that book in the event of such a remaster. It'd either be in a new element-themed book, a new race book to the tune of Galactic Ancestries and Ancestry Guide, a combination of one of the earlier including the remaining 5 geniekin and a remaster of Rage of Elements, and lastly, I have an unlikely hope that because Impossible Magic shows an elemental on its cover, I think a magic themed book would be a good fit to include the geniekin if it includes new ancestry options at all. Either way, Paizo has been doing a good job rolling out Legacy ancestry options with each core and lost omens book, so I'm sure they'll come in time.

[HenshinFanatic]

I'm hoping they'll be in Impossible Magic, because I don't see many other possible places for them to show up organically unless Paizo starts going back to releasing products akin to their old PF1E line of softcovers like Melee Tactics Toolbox, Weapon Master's Handbook, People of the Stars, etc.

[Zoken44]

I was thinking this too, but I hadn't heard anything about it.

[BotBrain]

I'm not holding my breath for them being in impossible magic, it sounds like it's going to be a book really hurting for page count.

[Xenocrat]

They've only ever remastered/converted-to-ORC old products that are necessary to have an independent viable product line should Hasbro follow through on their old threats. Originally this was the bare minimimum of the core books.

Probably Guns and Gears and Dark Archive weren't originally on any longterm plan (and maybe not Monster Core 2), but Paizo's customers had the bad taste to buy enough that they sold out and could support an economically viable reprint with the absolute bare minimum of work to strip out OGL and almost no effort on rules fixes.

As low as I'd expect the future G&G and DA revenue to be, providing the geniekin in a new book is surely going to make even less compared to alternative new material they could be printing.

[moosher12]

Xenocrat wrote:

They've only ever remastered/converted-to-ORC old products that are necessary to have an independent viable product line should Hasbro follow through on their old threats. Originally this was the bare minimimum of the core books.

Probably Guns and Gears and Dark Archive weren't originally on any longterm plan (and maybe not Monster Core 2), but Paizo's customers had the bad taste to buy enough that they sold out and could support an economically viable reprint with the absolute bare minimum of work to strip out OGL and almost no effort on rules fixes.

As low as I'd expect the future G&G and DA revenue to be, providing the geniekin in a new book is surely going to make even less compared to alternative new material they could be printing.

I think there's two reasons we're more likely than not to eventually get geniekin within the next few years:

1. Geniekin are actually pretty popular. Especially since they have the D&D overlap with genasi, so a lot of D&D people come in wanting to be geniekin. We're already confirmed to get fetchlings, strix, and sprites back. So Paizo is certainly remastering Legacy stuff as soon as the appropriate book comes up. I don't think Paizo would plan to sleep on a fan favorite for too long. Something gives me the feeling they'd at least be more popular than fetchlings. But we're still relatively early in the Remaster, to be frank.

2. I don't think page count is gonna be an issue, if anything, the remastered format I think more likely than not is probably gonna compress the geniekin into a single geniekin heritage, as the various outer planes scions (tieflings, aasimars, aphorites, and ganzi) were compressed into Nephilim. Granted, some folks probably would not be fond of this change and the need to use Lineage feats, but with the host of universal geniekin feats, I have a strong feeling that switching to a single "geniekin versatile heritage" that divides the individual subtypes into lineages would be the likely move in a remaster, reducing the heritages to a relatively small page count. Enough to slot into any rulebook that would have ancestries anyway. Though I would not be surprised if they pulled a nephilim, only granted the lineages for the first 5, and then granting the final 2 lineages elsewhere. If we ever got a new Lost Omens Ancestry Core to the tune of Galactic Ancestries, that'd also be a very easy place to just finish off the remaining ancestries in one fell swoop, and have room for some new ones.

[Trixleby]

moosher12 wrote:

We're already confirmed to get fetchlings, strix, and sprites back.

What do you mean back? Did they go somewhere?

[PossibleCabbage]

Trixleby wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

We're already confirmed to get fetchlings, strix, and sprites back.

What do you mean back? Did they go somewhere?

Most likely they're just being brought up to remaster standards with things like "feats that give access to flight."

[Squark]

Trixleby wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

We're already confirmed to get fetchlings, strix, and sprites back.

What do you mean back? Did they go somewhere?

Well, for the minority of the playerbase that refuses to touch legacy content, they have, at least.

(For those wondering about their iminent "return," Strix and Fetchlings/Kayals will be in Lost Omens: Cheliax, and Sprites will be in Feybound)

[BotBrain]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Trixleby wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

We're already confirmed to get fetchlings, strix, and sprites back.

What do you mean back? Did they go somewhere?

Most likely they're just being brought up to remaster standards with things like "feats that give access to flight."

And feats in the double digits. A lot of the early non-core ancestries got so little to work with.

[Trixleby]

BotBrain wrote:

And feats in the double digits. A lot of the early non-core ancestries got so little to work with.

This is welcome news. I agree, a lot of the newer ancestries introduced in content feel fairly bare bones. More expansion for extant races is always welcome imo.

[Pacifist Paladin]

I'm sure they'll get remastered at some point, but its hard to tell where (like I would have bet money kitsune would be remastered with Tian Xia but no dice). Like I'd love to confidently say that Golden Road or a theoretical Casmaron book would have them but who knows. It'd be more likely if they get the nephilim treated and are condensed into one heritage.

Honestly with all the pre-master ancestries I think there is more than enough to justify a "Ancestry Guide but Not" similar to the relationship between Gods and Magic vs Divine Mysteries. That said haven't heard anything to that effect and the active remaster period seeming to have closed so I'm not expecting it.

[TheTownsend]

Pacifist Paladin wrote:

It'd be more likely if they get the nephilim treated and are condensed into one heritage.

I think people overestimate the likeliness of this happening. Tiefling and Aasimar specifically needed to change for copyright reasons. They got merged because the concepts were very similar and, crucially, it was easy because the base heritages did the exact same thing. There was no baseline mechanical difference to carry over, both premaster versions (and Aphorite) just upped your nightvision one step. (Admittedly, Ganzi messed this up a little, but that was a reasonable loss)

The different things some of the Geniekin heritages do are important enough to their flavor that I don't think you could consolidate them. I wouldn't want to be an Undine and have to worry about what lineage feat I have to take to actually be amphibious, that should be part of the base heritage so you can play freely with feats. Frankly, I'd prefer if Oread, Suli, Sylph, and Ardande had more unique baseline benefits, but that's just me.

[BotBrain]

Yeah I agree with Townsend. Geniekin being separate with shared feats sells their fantasy much better. It works with nephalim thematically because it shows how they're two sides of the same coin. I don't think geniekin would benefit from that.

And then, as mentioned, I don't want to have to mess with lineage feats to get undine benefits, whereas I think with Nephilim it's a much easier pill to swallow because their mechanics and aesthetics are much more separated.

[Perpdepog]

I'm also more in favor of all of the heritages remaining separate. I think they could consolidate all of the geniekin into a singular heritaege and leave all the baseline benefits in the heritage, but it'd either require homogenizing the different geniekin even more than they already are, and I also feel that going in the opposite direction would be preferable, or it'd make the heritage text itself rather bloated and messy.

[Pacifist Paladin]

To be clear I don't want them to be condensed either, but from a publisher / page count perspective it makes enough sense that I can't rule it out as a direction they'll go.

[JiCi]

Pretty sure that standardized feats could be used for them.

[exequiel759]

Tbh I think they could merge all the geniekin into a heritage without problem. Most of them grant you either darkvision or a small resistance to a certain elemental damage type. The heritage could easily make you choose an element and gain resistance to it, plus darkvision.

Geniekin have a ton of feats that overlap between them, so those would be merged.

[ornathopter]

I'd like it if those generic geniekin feats could be condensed with standard ancestry feats, because if that space got freed up we could have some more interesting element-themed ancestry feats. Personally if I'm looking at making an elemental plane touched character, it's because I want to make someone who's all fire or all air, not do wish-granting stuff. I'd rather they lean more into making the plane touched ancestries work for all kinds of elemental characters, rather than consolidating them as genie variants.

[NoxiousMiasma]

ornathopter wrote:

I'd like it if those generic geniekin feats could be condensed with standard ancestry feats, because if that space got freed up we could have some more interesting element-themed ancestry feats. Personally if I'm looking at making an elemental plane touched character, it's because I want to make someone who's all fire or all air, not do wish-granting stuff. I'd rather they lean more into making the plane touched ancestries work for all kinds of elemental characters, rather than consolidating them as genie variants.

The elemental planetouched aren't all related to genies, though? They're getting called "geniekin" in this thread because that's a common shorthand (and unlike A Certain Other Fantasy TTRPG, they don't have a group name), but there's lineage options for each element that aren't genies at all.

Like, a sylph might be descended from any sapient air elemental, not just a jaathoom - a smokesoul might be the grandchild of a belker, while one with the Cloud Gazer feat might be descended from a Picture-in-Clouds. Elemental planetouched often also descend from Primal dragons linked to their element, as well as genies - ardande and forest dragons, ifrits and magma dragons, oreads and crystal dragons, talos and skymetal dragons, so on and so forth.

[Squark]

ornathopter wrote:

I'd like it if those generic geniekin feats could be condensed with standard ancestry feats, because if that space got freed up we could have some more interesting element-themed ancestry feats. Personally if I'm looking at making an elemental plane touched character, it's because I want to make someone who's all fire or all air, not do wish-granting stuff. I'd rather they lean more into making the plane touched ancestries work for all kinds of elemental characters, rather than consolidating them as genie variants.

I'm not sure you should get your hopes up. Secrets of the Swarm doesn't use Standardized Ancestry Feats (based on the store preview page). I think standardized ancestry feats not being in a core rulebook may make them impossible to implement across books.

[ornathopter]

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

ornathopter wrote:

I'd like it if those generic geniekin feats could be condensed with standard ancestry feats, because if that space got freed up we could have some more interesting element-themed ancestry feats. Personally if I'm looking at making an elemental plane touched character, it's because I want to make someone who's all fire or all air, not do wish-granting stuff. I'd rather they lean more into making the plane touched ancestries work for all kinds of elemental characters, rather than consolidating them as genie variants.

The elemental planetouched aren't all related to genies, though? They're getting called "geniekin" in this thread because that's a common shorthand (and unlike A Certain Other Fantasy TTRPG, they don't have a group name), but there's lineage options for each element that aren't genies at all.

Like, a sylph might be descended from any sapient air elemental, not just a jaathoom - a smokesoul might be the grandchild of a belker, while one with the Cloud Gazer feat might be descended from a Picture-in-Clouds. Elemental planetouched often also descend from Primal dragons linked to their element, as well as genies - ardande and forest dragons, ifrits and magma dragons, oreads and crystal dragons, talos and skymetal dragons, so on and so forth.

Exactly! That's why I don't want feats like Genie Weapon Flourish and Noble Resolve and Miraculous Repair, ones that are just about being descended from genies and that all the elemental planetouched heritages get, to be a reason to consolidate all the heritages together. I would rather those be minimized and their page space replaced with more unique-to-each element feat options, instead of having one big combined Genie Heritage. Because that way, it would be much better for people who want to have elemental ancestry characters totally unrelated to the genie aristocracy.

[moosher12]

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

ornathopter wrote:

I'd like it if those generic geniekin feats could be condensed with standard ancestry feats, because if that space got freed up we could have some more interesting element-themed ancestry feats. Personally if I'm looking at making an elemental plane touched character, it's because I want to make someone who's all fire or all air, not do wish-granting stuff. I'd rather they lean more into making the plane touched ancestries work for all kinds of elemental characters, rather than consolidating them as genie variants.

The elemental planetouched aren't all related to genies, though? They're getting called "geniekin" in this thread because that's a common shorthand (and unlike A Certain Other Fantasy TTRPG, they don't have a group name), but there's lineage options for each element that aren't genies at all.

Like, a sylph might be descended from any sapient air elemental, not just a jaathoom - a smokesoul might be the grandchild of a belker, while one with the Cloud Gazer feat might be descended from a Picture-in-Clouds. Elemental planetouched often also descend from Primal dragons linked to their element, as well as genies - ardande and forest dragons, ifrits and magma dragons, oreads and crystal dragons, talos and skymetal dragons, so on and so forth.

Geniekin are not called such in this thread as a shorthand, they are called Geniekin because that is what they are called in Ancestry Guide pg. 98-119 They are presented as one heritage group with multiple heritage feats.

Ancestry Guide pg. 98 wrote:

Geniekin

The elements themselves flow through the veins of geniekin, mortals who carry the proud legacy of their elemental ancestors.

As for folks talking about keeping geniekin as is or congregating, I think that problematically, the race itself is 18 pages. Plus 8 more pages in the event that wood and metal gets remastered alongside them (to remind, there is not a single geniekin heritage in remaster atm. Rage of Elements was printed under the Open Gaming Licence, not the Open RPG Creative Licence.). So, any book with geniekin being separated into constituent parts would need to reserve 26 pages to them. Which I don't think we're going to see unless we get a remastered Ancestry Guide to the tune of Gods and Magic/Divine Mysteries.

Only way I see us getting these ancestries in any other sort of book is if they are aggregated together like a nephilim.

Though personally, I'd prefer the remastered Ancestry Guide approach. I've said it before, but there are few-yet-plentiful enough legacy ancestries in the system to fill a new ancestry guide, but leaving room to add some new ancestries to sweeten the pot. And every ancestry that is scalped from the original ancestry guide is a potential new ancestry that can go into the remastered one.

The only other way I can see Paizo justifying this many pages to a book is if the book itself HEAVILY fits the theme. But problematically, the only sort of book that fits that level of detail would be replacing Rage of Elements with an entirely new elemental planes book, to the tune of replacing Secrets of Magic with Impossible Magic. While it is technically possible, as it is, Rage of Elements is more expected by folks in the community to get a Dark Archives/Guns & Gears style update, rather than a more drastic redo, so this approach feels all the more unlikely, due to its status of being an OGL book written like an ORC book.

TLDR: Unless we are getting either a remastered elemental planes book to replace Rage of Elements, or a remastered lost omens ancestry book to replace Ancestry Guide, our only hope to getting geniekin in remaster is gonna be compression.

[ornathopter]

Yeah, I have my hopes set on a new Ancestry Guide, especially because I'd love a round of ancestries that don't fit neatly into a particular setting book. I'm sure between unremastered material, leftover pf1 ancestries, and just giving the writers free reign, you could easily fill a book. And as far as I can tell, people would be happy to pre-order that sort of thing. And it'd be a good place to introduce standardized ancestry feats, too.

[The Raven Black]

moosher12 wrote:

As for folks talking about keeping geniekin as is or congregating, I think that problematically, the race itself is 18 pages. Plus 8 more pages in the event that wood and metal gets remastered alongside them (to remind, there is not a single geniekin heritage in remaster atm. Rage of Elements was printed under the Open Gaming Licence, not the Open RPG Creative Licence.).

A small note that Rage of Elements is indeed OGL and not ORC, but it is part of the Remaster.

This is why the Kineticist on AoN does not have the Legacy Content tag whereas Magus still has it (until Impossible Magic ofc).

[moosher12]

While it was advertised as a remastered book, the fact of the matter is that the point of the Remaster in the first place was to separate from OGL, to not have certain content grabbable by a certain other company. And we have a book that is still subject to be used by writers using this old license (OGL), and still cannot be used by writers using the new license which was the point of the Remaster in the first place (ORC). Even if the book was advertised as such, it is difficult to consider it actually remaster if for practical and licensing purposes of the remaster even existing, it is not treated as one. It's an on the council without the rank of master scenario.

AoN keeping it as is is not necessarily an indicator of correctness either. They are not Paizo. They are a second party company, working with Paizo's blessing, and they can make honest mistakes. (For example: two years since war of immortals and aphorites and ganzi are still erroneously included in the versatile heritages page when they should not be in the remastered section at all. They should be hidden like Aasimar and Tiefling. They also took until Dark Archive Remastered to even consider dividing Guns and Gears, Treasure Vault, and Dark Archive to have both legacy and remastered versions, where they erased the legacy versions of Guns and Gears and Treasure Vault until Dark Archive Remastered came out.) But this is not meant to be a dig at them. Pathfinder and Starfinder, combined between 1E, and 2E, and then dividing 2E into Pathfinder 2E Legacy, and Pathfinder and Starfinder 2E Remaster, is a lot to sort through. These are easy and justifiable mistakes to make. And there is little incentive for either Paizo or AoN to worry about such a thing. Paizo's writers are not subject to licensing limitations between Paizo products, and can reference Paizo OGL content without worry. And for AoN, the distinction is a trifling matter to the average gm or player, who can freely use core rulebook items in a remastered game anyway. This is a problem that only shows a barrier to non-Paizo writers, where only said writers who are working with legacy content can use it, and said writers who are working with the newer remaster content cannot use it. (Though if there is something to be thankful for, it does inject some remastered formatting back into OGL so OGL books can use said formatting.)

[Nightwhisper]

moosher12 wrote:

While it was advertised as a remastered book, the fact of the matter is that the point of the Remaster in the first place was to separate from OGL, to not have certain content grabbable by a certain other company. And we have a book that is still subject to be used by writers using this old license (OGL), and still cannot be used by writers using the new license which was the point of the Remaster in the first place (ORC). Even if the book was advertised as such, it is difficult to consider it actually remaster if for practical and licensing purposes of the remaster even existing, it is not treated as one. It's an on the council without the rank of master scenario.

I think you might have misunderstood what the Remaster was for, and its relation to the OGL vs. ORC.

Yes, the point was to separate from OGL. This was because at the time, WotC had announced they would impose costs for using the OGL. It had nothing to do with the content being grabbable by others, especially since WotC doesn't actually use the OGL to publish their content. Heck, nothing stops WotC from using ORC to grab Remaster content as long as they abide by that license.

But the point of ORC is to have an open license for third-party publishers. It is not and never was in any way a requirement for the Remaster. Paizo could have published the Remaster with no license, and it would still be the Remaster. It is Paizo's content, and that's why they're able to republish OGL books under ORC after making sure there are no OGL references.

The Remaster and ORC are related, but one does not depend on the other. You'll note, for example, that Kineticist impulses have been published under ORC: two in Severed at the Root and three in Hell's Destiny. Similarly, we've had Inventor feats and Magus Hybrid Studies in ORC content before these classes had their respective Remaster release.

[moosher12]

Nightwhisper wrote:

The Remaster and ORC are related, but one does not depend on the other. You'll note, for example, that Kineticist impulses have been published under ORC: two in Severed at the Root and three in Hell's Destiny. Similarly, we've had Inventor feats and Magus Hybrid Studies in ORC content...

moosher12 wrote:

And there is little incentive for either Paizo or AoN to worry about such a thing. Paizo's writers are not subject to licensing limitations between Paizo products, and can reference Paizo OGL content without worry.

This is a problem that only shows a barrier to non-Paizo writers, where only said writers who are working with legacy content can use it, and said writers who are working with the newer remaster content cannot use it.

A Paizo writer can, but if I, for example, wrote a Remastered class expansion guide for every class, containing feats and variant class archetypes and the like, I would need to leave out Kineticist content, and otherwise publish the content for this class in a separate OGL book (or under Infinite, but see further below), or wait until Kineticist is remastered. (For example, if someone wanted to make an ORC book of spellcasters, they couldn't include magus and summoner until Impossible Magic comes out. These would need to be published in a separate book under OGL).

These appear as trivialities, because you are only thinking of the situation from the scope of Paizo products only (as proven by your decision to reference Paizo products and not 3rd party products), not from the scope of Paizo products and 3rd party products. A reference to a Paizo product does not work, because that is part of the problem, writers hired by Paizo are not subject to licensing disagreements between their own products. Which is why they can take their product in one license, and just apply another appropriate license to it, as they are the first party, and own the ideas. it's also why you can have a much less licensed work like the Warframe Starfinder Adventure which uses neither ORC nor OGL, but instead just references the Warframe and Paizo trademarks, whose mechanical materials are not touchable by anyone but Paizo writers, while still referencing base rules like the Core Rulebook without either the OGL or the ORC license, because Paizo itself is not required to adhere to licensing limitations when they reference their own products.

A third party writer, however, is not allowed to reference Paizo's works without either the OGL, ORC, or Infinite Licenses (Infinite would probably the closest to mixing the two, but use with caution, as you have to grant a lot more then mechanical content to enter this license, which is why it's a license more for entering the Pathfinder and Starfinder settings, than for general setting-agnostic use.)

Basically, for your point to stand, you'd need to reference a 3rd party product published under ORC and including Kineticist material. (for future readers, published before an official remastered kineticist is released).

[moosher12]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

Brief aside in relation to another thread, but since Kineticist is still a weird legacy/remaster hybrid, and with Botbrain mentioning doing a Kineticist and going down to 1/year. What if we got another Impossible Magic style surprise where we got a year with 2 classes, but one was remastered kineticist and one was a new class that either dealt with elemental planes or nature in some way, and then shifting to 1/year from there.

Is the Kineticist really not wholly a remaster class already? Like I know Rage of Elements was the last PF2 book with the OGL in it, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the Kineticist class that needs updating more than the level of "errata".

So the problem is, for gameplay purposes, the Kineticist is perfectly a remaster class. It just does not count as a remaster class for IP purposes. Basically, as far as any GM or player is concerned, it is not an important distinction in the least. And it only becomes a bugbear for writers. So for the vast majority of people that deal with it, it is remaster, but it is not "wholly" a remaster class. 90% remaster, but not 100%

That's what makes it such a frustrating situation from a writer's perspective. The distinction is so small, that there is frankly little incentive to fix it except in the most convenient of forms (i.e. they're out of Rage of Elements books, and need to do a reprint, so can just slap ORC on the next print run without actually changing any text except for applying current errata). Earlier I used the comparison of it being an "On the council but not granted the rank of master," scenario. There is also the part where it's hard to explain this to players and GMs because this is not something that affects them. At least back when folks were saying that we didn't need remasters of Legacy non-Player Core classes, we could argue that changing the language to simplify the conversion was important. But with Kineticist, we don't even have to deal with that barrier, so there is zero customer-side friction. Which means it would be extremely low on the priority list.

Note: For people who lack context of this post, I was bringing a side point to this thread from another thread.

[Nightwhisper]

moosher12 wrote:

These appear as trivialities, because you are only thinking of the situation from the scope of Paizo products only (as proven by your decision to reference Paizo products and not 3rd party products), not from the scope of Paizo products and 3rd party products. A reference to a Paizo product does not work, because that is part of the problem, writers hired by Paizo are not subject to licensing disagreements between their own products. Which is why they can take their product in one license, and just apply another appropriate license to it, as they are the first party, and own the ideas. it's also why you can have a much less licensed work like the Warframe Starfinder Adventure which uses neither ORC nor OGL, but instead just references the Warframe and Paizo trademarks, whose mechanical materials are not touchable by anyone but Paizo writers, while still referencing base rules like the Core Rulebook without either the OGL or the ORC license, because Paizo itself is not required to adhere to licensing limitations when they reference their own products.

A third party writer, however, is not allowed to reference Paizo's works without either the OGL, ORC, or Infinite Licenses (Infinite would probably the closest to mixing the two, but use with caution, as you have to grant a lot more then mechanical content to enter this license, which is why it's a license more for entering the Pathfinder and Starfinder settings, than for general setting-agnostic use.)

Basically, for your point to stand, you'd need to reference a 3rd party product published under ORC and including Kineticist material. (for future readers, published before an official remastered kineticist is released).

Then it's purely a difference of how we use the words. I would not say that the Starfinder x Warframe book is not a Starfinder 2e book just because it is not released under ORC. Similarly, I would consider the Fools Aplenty blog post Remaster content despite it not having the ORC license.

I am not thinking of it only in the scope of Paizo products, I am thinking of it for what the words means. Remaster is the version of the rule set. ORC is the license. Either can exist without the other. There is Remaster content that is not published under ORC. There is content published under ORC that is not Remaster (or even Pathfinder or Starfinder). Saying that the Kineticist is not remastered, to me, is wrong. Saying 3rd-party publishers cannot use it for Remaster-compatible products is correct, however.

[Nightwhisper]

Adding a second post since I got an additional clarifying thought.

To me, saying the Kineticist is not a Remaster class is the same as saying that mind flayers are not a DnD 3.5e monster. Mind flayers do have a stat block in the 3.5e Monster Manual and can be used in play. But being IP, it was never part of the SRD, meaning it is not available to 3rd-party publishers or writers.

[moosher12]

I'll repeat it again. Fools applenty is first party content, so it is not subject to the limitations of needing a license. I have already said this two times in two posts. All it means is that it is not touchable by 3rd party users. This is something 1st party publishers have always been able to do. Please reference a 3rd party ORC product. Because you are still only thinking in the scope of Paizo products by only relating the Paizo products that relate to this argument. As for the Mindflayers, that's first party WotC content, which they can use in their products without a license. There is a reason Roll for Combat, when trying to make playable Mindflayers, instead had to make Cerebrophages.

There is also a difference between unlicensed, and using a different license. The point of leaving a mindflayer unlicensed, is so that a writer cannot include mindflayers in an adventure they wrote for IP protection purposes. Kineticists are not like this for IP protection, they are licensed because Paizo wants to let them be used in 3rd party material, because a writer can still use the OGL to include Kineticists in their adventure. But it means they cannot include both Kineticists and Animists in their adventure. Because a 3rd party book cannot be both ORC and OGL. It has to be one, or the other.

In the end, people argued endlessly over the last few years that we didn't need a remaster of non core classes. For an example of recent relevance, people argued there was no need for Magus and Summoner, because they already got their compatibility errata years ago, actually, every legacy class that got compatibility errata was considered effectively remastered content by some. And every class that didn't get compatibility errata was considered to have so little need of change that they were considered automatically remastered by those same folks. In their eyes, all of these classes were considered Remastered while still being in OGL books. But fortunately, despite these definitions being thrown about that they were Remastered already and didn't need a dedicated book, we eventually got them all in proper form, but one. There is one non-core class left, which needs be brought forward. And that is the Kineticist. Paizo has done well to carry the Legacy classes into Remaster, despite the legacy classes already being capable of being defined as remaster, they just need to finish the job. Fortunately, they only have one left to do, as when they started this mess, they had to do 23. 22 down, 1 to go. Then, aside from a few errant ancestries (like looping back to my starting posts and bringing forth all the geniekin, as all of this began with the exertation that the wood and metal geniekin were not ORC entries, which means when Geniekin get remastered, metal and wood can be remastered alongside them), Paizo can finally wash their hands of all of this OGL/ORC mess. Because we all know it's been a headache for both Paizo's employees and the community, driving a wedge in their original intended release order. We never were supposed to get even a preview of Remastered design until PF2E's equivalent of Pathfinder Unchained at the end of its life cycle, which would not have gone into effect until PF3E, if it were not for this fiasco.

[Nightwhisper]

moosher12 wrote:

I'll repeat it again. Fools applenty is first party content, so it is not subject to the limitations of needing a license. I have already said this two times in two posts. All it means is that it is not touchable by 3rd party users.

I will try to be more clear, then. Do you think Fools Aplenty is not Remastered content, yes or no?

[moosher12]

Remastered first party non-licensed content.

Though, I see where you are trying to go with this. You're trying to catch me with what you see as an inconsistency that if unlicensed content can still be a remaster, and be fine, then incorrectly licensed content can be considered remaster, and be fine. I'll remind the difference between nonlicensed content, and incorrectly licensed content. Here's the thing, I as a writer, am already fine with content being intentionally unlicensed. Let's look at the April Fool's blog you like to use as an example. These items are not actually up to QA standards. They are not vetted for product use for the intended gameplay. Some entries, like the cat on keyboard, don't even work, while other enties, like Speedrun Stats, can actively break the game. They are unlicensed, because they are not an intended part of the actual game. And that's fine. Paizo has the right to leave things unlicensed for any reason, if low QA for a meme is the reason, I'd rather it be that over them being possessive of their IP. But ultimately, your question does not act as a relevant counterpoint, because Kineticist is not unlicensed. It is licensed, and that is a different issue. This license is not compatible with the rest of the body of the Remastered content, and is only compatible with Legacy content. By these metrics then you know Magus and Summoner in Secrets of Magic. Those are Remastered content, because they got an errata pass. Barbarian in Core Rulebook? That's a remaster class, because it does not need compatibility to function in Remaster, and therefore, is remaster. According to this logic. You as a player or GM can say, "It looks remastered because I can use it in my game without issue." You as a customer are not subject to any regulation, you can take any legacy class, apply any needed errata, and apply it to your game. A writer can say "It's unlicensed, so no one can use it." and that's fine, because they may want to protect their IP. But what do you do when a writer has to say, "I can only mix the Kineticist with Legacy content, so for practical purposes, it might as well be Legacy to me."?

[PossibleCabbage]

I just assume that Rage of Elements is eventually going to need reprinting, at which point we will add in the errata, do some minimal changes (e.g. find and replace "negative/positive" for "void/vital") and change the license from OGL to ORC.

I do not think there will be many changes made to the Kineticist.

[moosher12]

Yeah, errata is the best it's guaranteed to get. Dark Archive/Guns & Gears is the best treatment I'd expect at the most. Kineticist doesn't get that many complaints, so mechanically, there isn't much to fix at this point. If Paizo wanted to do something crazy though. Adding the pages to a Remastered Rage of Elements for the remaining geniekin would be a good opportunity to make it a standalone elemental book. At least, that'd add some value for it as a remaster if the Kineticist itself would get minimal changes. Though that'd require adding 18 pages, so...

Brief side note if Kineticist did get extra material: Personally, I have a quiet hope that Kineticist at some point could get a feat that lets you impulse through a held implement. I've been wanting to do an air kineticist that dual wields fans for a long time, but the fact that they can hold at most one fan is a bit saddening. Would love to see a feat that let you cast impulses with your hands full, using a held implement as a focus for the impulse, and potentially even letting you graft some elemental power onto an existing weapon if the implement is one, instead of creating a weapon from elemental power.

[JiCi]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I just assume that Rage of Elements is eventually going to need reprinting, at which point we will add in the errata, do some minimal changes (e.g. find and replace "negative/positive" for "void/vital") and change the license from OGL to ORC.

I do not think there will be many changes made to the Kineticist.

Not until Paizo implements standardized feats... hopefully...

Oh, and the Kineticist could use something that treats its stuff as Stikes or Spells... That should be something you decide at lvl 1.